Archaeologists Discover One Of Rome's Lost Jewish Cemeteries

This week, Italian archaeologists revealed that 38 graves were recently uncovered in the Trastevere district of the city of Rome. As Italian newspaper Il Messaggeroinitially reported, these skeletons were found within a Jewish necropolis. The discovery further reveals the oft-overlooked Jewish population that lived, worked and died within ancient and medieval Rome.

Photo take by Sarah E. Bond at the Baths of Diocletian, Rome.

Funerary inscription of Proclus, archon of the Tripolitan synagogue. It probably came from the area of Trastevere (3rd c. CE, Catacomb of Monteverde, via Portuense).

The necropolis was revealed on March 20, 2017 at a news conference held at the national museum located within the Baths of Diocletian in Rome. The so-called "Campus Iudeorum" (A name that loosely translates in Latin to 'The Field of the Jewish People') has long been known about from literary sources; however, the recent excavations under Palazzo Leonori, located on viale delle Mura Portuensi 33 in Rome's hip Trastevere district, provide material evidence for its existence. The graves date to the city's late medieval period, circa 1300-1600.

Most of the bodies were male. They were inhumed in wooden coffins nailed shut, although two women were also found. These women were wearing golden rings. An inscription in Hebrew was also recovered from the excavations which went down more than 8 meters.

The discovery comes at a time when the premodern Jewish communities within Rome have been increasingly underscored, researched and incorporated into the city's rich history. Earlier this year, the curators of the Vatican Museums and Rome’s Jewish Museum announced a joint collaboration to display artistic depictions of the menorah. The exhibit will run at both the Vatican and the Jewish Museum beginning in May. It is called: "Menorah: Worship, History, Legend."

A menora stone sculpture is exhibited at the Jewish Museum in Rome 22 November 2005 (Photo credit: ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images).

The history of Rome's Jewish population stretches back to classical antiquity and is often forgotten in the midst of more well-known and sensationalized accounts of corrupt emperors, golden palaces and gladiatorial games. Yet many Jewish families that lost loved ones chose to bury their dead near to the city. Rather than above-ground cemeteries, the Jews of Rome are often tied to a number of underground catacombs that lie further outside the city. Many are along the Via Appia and Via Nomentana.

In 1602, Italian catacomb explorer Antonio Bosio first discovered what he called a "Jewish catacomb" along the via Portuense, though historians such as Nicola Denzey Lewis(Brown University) have recently called into question the extent to which these burial areas were exclusively reserved for the Jewish population. In reality, Jewish burials (often denoted with Jewish symbols such as the menorah, an ark or a ram's horn) appear on a number of burial spaces throughout Rome's extensive catacomb system. Jews were often buried in close proximity to Christian and "pagan" burial spots as well.

A visit to the catacombs outside the city of Rome reveals a number of frescoes, inscriptions, and evidence for the ancient Jewish population that existed in city; however, the new discovery of the "Campus Iudeorum" in Trastevere supports the existence of a long history for Roman Jews that extended from antiquity into the later middle ages and beyond. Jews living within medieval Rome had their own synagogues and neighborhoods within the city, as well as their own magistrates. By the end of the 14th century, the community also had an official judicial status as a corporation called the Universitas Iudeorum Urbis.

The unveiling of just 38 bodies may seem an insignificant number when compared to the millions buried in and around the eternal city since the city's founding in 753 BCE, but the discovery is yet another important piece of evidence that allows historians, archaeologists and the public to reconstruct the extremely diverse Roman population that made the city what it was and what it still is today.

Sarah E. Bond is an Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Iowa. For more on ancient and medieval history, follow her @SarahEBond.